South Carolina Election Results

South Carolina Election Results, Strong backing from conservative and religious voters and people fretting about the uncertain economy fueled Newt Gingrich’s victory Saturday in South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, an exit poll of voters showed Saturday.

The figures also showed that for the first time, the former House speaker had grabbed two constituencies that his chief rival, Mitt Romney, has captured in the year’s two previous GOP contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. By slight margins, he bested Romney among voters looking for someone to defeat President Barack Obama this November, and those who considered the economy the top issue in deciding which candidate to back.

Gingrich benefited most from the campaign’s final, tumultuous week, the figures showed. Just over half said they’d chosen a candidate in the last few days, and they backed Gingrich over Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, by 2-1. By a slightly stronger margin, the roughly two-thirds who said campaign debates were an important factor also supported Gingrich. There were two GOP debates in South Carolina during the past week.

In the last days of the campaign, Romney stumbled badly when asked repeatedly whether he will release his income tax returns. Gingrich endured an allegation by one of his two former wives, Marianne, that he had asked permission for an open marriage while he was having an affair with his current wife, Callista.

That accusation seemed to take only a slight toll on Gingrich. Gingrich got less than 10 percent support from people who said what they most wanted in a candidate was strong moral character, but these voters were less than 1 in 5 of those who showed up Saturday at the polls.

In addition, Gingrich did slightly better than Romney among women, and polled a bit more strongly among married than unmarried women.

Gingrich won healthy margins among the state’s conservatives, who comprise more than 6 in 10 voters in the state. While that was bad news for Romney, it was even more damaging to Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who has been dueling with Gingrich to become the GOP’s conservative champion and alternative to Romney.

Gingrich won among conservatives and tea party supporters by nearly 2-1 over Romney. Santorum was slightly behind.